The 2.0 world is evolving rapidly, creating new promotions and
marketing opportunities such as RSS feeds, podcasting, blogging,
talking avatars and widgets everywhere.~A

Keeping Pace: The Evolution of Marketing and BrandingIn the digital space, the world of marketing and branding is constantly changing. New technology developments are prompting companies to take a fresh look at the ways they reach and interact with their vendors and customers.

CALLING IT A MAJOR INITIATIVE in the digital space for a consumer brand, Dove says the channel will reside at dove.com. The innovative new interactive, multimedia channel launches first in the U.S. and will be rolled out to the UK and Canada in the next three months.

Swifter is rolling out a promotion inviting consumers to feature the Swifter product in their own YouTube music video for a cash prize. The brand’s target consumer is in their 20’s to mid-30’s, a demographic that uses this kind of social media often. ~A

Senior Editor in Charge of Adotas, Sarah Novotny summarizes key future
trends in Online advertising as predicted by Dilip DaSilva,
Exponential’s founder and CEO. Excerpting from the summary, Novotny
says there are six key trends identified in this release.~A

Center for Media Research – Daily Brief1. In a
world where nearly everything can be anonymously known about a
registered user on a large site, marketers are making full use of the
data to deliver on the promise of 1-1 marketing. Online advertisers wil
create highly customized and immersive marketing experiences, fully
leveraging the most up-to-date data from their databases.

2.
While user generated content (UGC) is inappropriate for most major
brands, we’ll see more professionally-produced viral campaigns that
capitalize on this genre, says DaSilva. With no standards, and lots of
different players and technology, video buys are still incredibly labor
intensive, and often require site-by-site exercise he says. Brand
advertisers are clamoring for an affordable, brand-safe environment
with the ability to target audiences with video.

Premium
content is very expensive, and serious questions are emerging about the
level of intrusiveness of running pre-roll. Professionally produced
content affords a better value but is more difficult to find at scale.
Overlay advertising will likely become the preferred solution, DaSilva
anticipates, when it comes to monetizing the large volume of user
generated video content, whereas pre-roll will continue to be tolerated
in front of high-quality content.

3.
2008 is the year when we finally see a viable, truly local solution for
local advertisers. The breakout leader in the online local space will
be the company that provides the best user experience and repeat users,
“without consumers being bombarded with national ads when they are
looking for a local sushi restaurant.” says the release.

We
believe, reports DaSilva, that “vertical local” will play a vital role,
becoming even more granular, or “hyper local,” with legal, travel, and
home services playing an important role as well. The release notes that
Yellowpages.com and Superpages tend to attract the users who are
searching for more services.

“Local
CPC (cost-per-click) display” will evolve to be a major factor in 2008.
This means local users on a national site will be shown display ads of
local businesses in their area that are relevant to their interests,
using data from the display network. These ads create a greater CTR and
also the opportunity for local businesses to advertise on sites that
they could not have accessed in the past.

4.
As more advertisers launch online branding campaigns they increasingly
want more metric feedback on the effectiveness of their online
marketing efforts, beyond clicks, both to justify spending on the web
and to help guide their future media allocations.

With
the shift of TV to online, the industry has no choice but to embrace
the emotional selling proposition where the emotional values becomes
critically important in the buying process. This change will enable
online buying to shift from a transactional strategy to an ongoing
source for influencing the customer in different stages of the purchase
funnel.

5.
While the technology of computers acting as intelligent agents has
largely lived in the research arena, it is now making its way into
mainstream applications. (Some Online marketers) are now deploying
applications that “learn,” enabling users to structure and share the
richness of their online experiences.

6.
2008 will see the increased popularity of Virtual Worlds. Users will
increasingly shift towards specialty worlds more closely associated
with their lifestyles or interests. This will be an opportunity for
marketers to create whole worlds around products, or to customize
environments inside specialty virtual environments.

Advertisers
can create branded environments and even brand accessories. For
example, Coke Studios is an online community with millions of users
creating customized music mixes that can be shared and rated by others.

DaSilva
concludes that “These are a few of the key topics we think will be
consistently discussed during the conferences and industry events in
2008…”

MySpace will feature free, easy-to-play titles from Oberon Media. Given that MySpace allows user-generated items like layouts, content tables and more, what do you think the likelihood that they will open up gaming to developers? Additionally, do you think MySpace will open their games up to advertisers and marketers? After all, you can be “friends” with brands on the social networking site…~A

The online social network, a unit of News Corp., on Tuesday announced a plan to create a destination for games on the site through a deal with New York-based Oberon, a closely held company that distributes games to a variety of high-profile online partners. The games section on MySpace, due to be launched in January, will feature hundreds of free “casual” games — easy-to-play titles that are part of the fastest growing sector of the games industry.

New research shows that consumers are turning to online reviews now more than ever, and these reviews have an impact on their purchase decisions. ~A

Center for Media Research – Daily BriefAccording to a recent survey by Deloitte’s Consumer Products group, consumers are turning to online reviews in large numbers, and those reviews are having a considerable impact on purchase decisions. 62 percent of consumers read consumer-written product reviews on the Internet, says the report, and of these, more than eight in 10 say their purchase decisions have been directly influenced by the reviews, either influencing them to buy a different product than the one they had originally been thinking about purchasing, or confirming the original purchase intention.

It may sound like a fraternity hazing, but the event is actually
part of a new advertising campaign for Axe Shower Gel, a soap
alternative made byUnilever.

After
its success selling Axe body spray and deodorant, Unilever is trying to
persuade more young men to use Axe in the shower. In June, the company
redesigned the gel’s packaging to look like a video game joystick and
now it is creating what the company calls “The World’s Dirtiest Film.”

Millenials are leading the way when it comes to reading blogs and watching video on the web. It’s clear from a new report from Deloitte shows that Millenials are the early-adopters when it comes to media and technology use.C.

According to the just released Deloitte’s study on Media & Entertainment practice, looking at how American consumers between 13 and 75 years of age are using media and technology today, Millennials (13-24) are leading the way, embracing new technologies, games, entertainment platforms, user-generated content and communication tools. Data from the survey show that user-generated content is in tremendous demand across the generations, with 51% of all consumers watching and/or reading content created by others.

All those years of dancing in your underwear will finally pay off. Jockey is launching 2 new websites – Stopsquirming.com where you can watch videos of a man and a woman acting out uncomfortable underwear situations, and jockeyunderwars.com where consumers can upload videos of themselves dancing in… oh yes – their tighty whities.

Brands have been inspiring consumers to use their creativity for a long time, and spirits brands are no exception. Crown Royal has recently began a promotion called the Legends of the Purple Bag where consumers are encouraged to design anything they want with the purple bag. The best design will be rewarded with a legendary weekend in NY or LA.C.